Politics this week

Delegates representing some 70 countries descended on Kabul for a conference on the future of Afghanistan, the first to be held in the country since an American-led coalition routed the Taliban in 2001. President Hamid Karzai presented an optimistic plan to return the national army and police to Afghan control by 2014, suggesting a date when foreign forces might leave. See article

Visiting South Korea, Hillary Clinton, America's secretary of state, announced measures to intensify financial sanctions against North Korea. Mrs Clinton cast this as punishment for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March; the North has already said it would retaliate against any blame for the incident, for which it denies responsibility. America and South Korea are due to conduct a big naval drill off the Korean peninsula's east coast, starting on July 25th. See article

Members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations urged Myanmar to hold “free and fair” elections this year. The country's military junta refused to say when its poll would go ahead, but it has forced the main opposition party to dissolve. ASEAN's secretary-general says Myanmar's delegates “got an earful”, which would be in keeping with the regional club's slowly toughening line.

A collision between two trains in West Bengal, India, killed at least 63 people. The driver apparently failed to apply his brakes. In May another deadly crash in the same state was blamed on Maoist sabotage.

The highest-ranking member of Taiwan's judiciary resigned, after three High Court judges and a prosecutor were arrested for their alleged involvement in a tawdry exchange with gangsters and corrupt policemen. The president said he would establish a powerful agency to monitor official corruption.

Australia's new prime minister, Julia Gillard, called early elections for August 21st. Her Labor party is showing a slight lead in the polls.

An independent Gaza

Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said that European governments should help make Gaza entirely independent, removing Israel's obligations towards its citizens and severing it for good from the West Bank, the separate and larger bit of the Palestinian territories. The prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, did not agree, suggesting strains within his ruling coalition. See article

Violence increased in the run-up to Rwanda's general election due on August 9th. President Paul Kagame's party denied involvement in the recent murders of an opposition leader, André Kagwa Rwisereka, and of a critical newspaper editor.

At least 53 civilians have been killed in the past week in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, during fighting between government forces and rebels of the Shabab group, which is linked to al-Qaeda. In a separate incident, a Shabab force ambushed Kenyan police patrolling the border with Somalia, raising fears that the Islamists are seeking to widen the conflict. They recently claimed responsibility for killing at least 76 people in bomb attacks in Uganda.

Mrs No Mates

Angela Merkel lost another political ally when Ole von Beust, the mayor of Hamburg, resigned. Mr von Beust is the sixth state premier from Mrs Merkel's Christian Democratic Union to step down in less than a year.

A Greek investigative journalist, Sokratis Giolias, was shot dead outside his Athens home. Police said they suspected the killing was the work of a terrorist organisation.

The EU's latest assessment of anti-corruption measures in Romania and Bulgaria was critical of the former and complimentary, in part, of the latter. Romania's president, Traian Basescu, said the criticisms were unfair.

Ramush Haradinaj, a former prime minister of Kosovo, will face a retrial for murder and torture, following a ruling by a tribunal investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The decision came one day before the International Court of Justice was due to issue its advisory ruling on the legality of Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence.

Unanimous vote

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Elena Kagan, Barack Obama's nominee to replace John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court. All the Democrats on the panel voted for Ms Kagan, who even secured the support of a Republican, Lindsey Graham.

The conservative tea-party movement expelled Mark Williams, one of its senior leaders, after he wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to Abraham Lincoln from the perspective of “coloured” people. He said slavery was a “great gig” as “freedom means having to work”. Meanwhile a new word entered the English language when Sarah Palin called on peace-loving Muslims to “refudiate” the planned construction of a mosque near the former site of New York's twin towers. See article

The Democrats swore in Carte Goodwin, their replacement for Robert Byrd in the Senate, thus overcoming a Republican filibuster of a measure to extend unemployment benefits, worth about $34 billion, to those who have been out of work for longer than six months. See article

Peace, man

Jamaica ended its state of emergency, instituted after an extradition order was issued for an alleged drug-trafficking leader, after the government failed to get the necessary votes in Parliament to extend it. All suspects held for questioning will have to be released as a result.

Desi Bouterse, the former dictator of Suriname, was elected president by the country's parliament after he easily secured the necessary two-thirds majority. He will be inaugurated on August 3rd.

Colombia's government announced it would present evidence at a special meeting of the Organisation of American States, showing that FARC guerrillas are operating in Venezuelan territory. Venezuela withdrew its ambassador in Bogotá in response. See article

Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's president, said his government may own as much as 48.5% of Globovisión, a television station that often criticises him, now that its owner has fled the country to avoid prosecution for business irregularities. Mr Chávez plans to have a state representative placed on the company's board.